Budding Flame
by Wheel of Fish
Summary: She will chase away the shadows from their marriage and their bed.


I was inspired to write this in response to a lovely piece of (nsfw) art by disaster-musician on Tumblr.

* * *

The bedroom is so quiet that Christine is certain it echoes the frenetic throbbing of her heart. The bedclothes do nothing to blanket the sound, nor her nervousness. Beneath them, she lies stock-still in her nightclothes.

The nightdress is new, and she shifts slightly to feel the brush of white linen against her otherwise bare skin. The sleeves and the square-cut neckline are trimmed with rows of delicate Valenciennes lace and ribbons of pale-pink satin.

She wishes that her husband would see it.

The door opens; his gaunt frame stands motionless in the doorway. As has become his routine, Erik seeks her out only to shy away when their eyes meet, and then he dims the gaslight, plunging the room into darkness.

The floorboards creak as he makes his way toward the bed. She listens to his shallow breathing and the rustle of fabric as he undresses. At last the mattress shifts until he lies next to her, a gap between their bodies.

They have shared a marital bed for two weeks, and it remains a place of words unspoken. She knows his intentions by the way he paws at the side of her nightdress, rolling the fabric gently between the pads of his fingers. It is her cue to sit up and pull the gown over her head, which she does, reveling in the feel of cool air against her bare chest.

The sound of the fabric slipping to the floor is his cue to roll over, which he does. She feels the weight of a broad palm on either side of her torso, feels the warmth of his breath from above. She puts a hand on his bare arm because he will let her do that now, let her touch that one expanse of skin. Sometimes he will let her kiss him, too: gently, so that her lips will not be tempted to wander off to the cadaverous planes of his face.

She does so tonight, cupping the back of his head with her other hand in order to pull him down to her mouth. His lips are thin but soft, and they press back this time. He shivers when her hand skates down the back of his neck and over his shoulder, and her splayed palm against his naked chest makes the muscles there contract.

"Erik," she murmurs, before he can protest, "might we try something different tonight?"

He does not respond at first. Under her hand, his bony arm quivers.

"Please," she adds. "You are my husband, and I love you. You _do_ trust me, do you not?"

His lungs emit a rasping breath. "I do," he concedes.

She kisses him again, smiling against his lips so that he can feel it, and with her hands she urges him to lie on his back once more. Once he is still, she reaches for the matchbox on her nightstand.

She works quickly. By the time he is alerted to the sharp _snick_ of the match and the soft flare at its tip, she has already lit the tapered candle at her bedside. He emits a strangled yelp of surprise and throws his arms over his face.

Christine blows out the match flame and places a warm hand on his elbow. "I want to see you," she says firmly. "I want us to see each other. I have already seen your face, my love, and it no longer frightens me. Will you not let me show you?"

He does not move, but neither does he protest, and so she edges closer and presses the front of her body to his side. She slides a hand across his exposed abdomen and plants delicate little kisses on his chest; he groans. "Oh, Christine!"

She does not stop. Finally, one of his hands finds the back of her head, its bony fingers snaking into her hair. Her palm on his abdomen travels south until she is certain of his arousal, and then she pulls away, lips and all.

* * *

Erik gasps at the loss of contact. How very warm he was, with her palm on his stomach and lips on his chest, her breath hot against his skin, her breasts pressed to his side. Her sudden absence is a shock to his system.

By the time he dares to uncover his face, she has pulled herself up to her knees beside his hip. Her golden hair spills over her shoulders and she is a nymph in his bed, all softness and skin, with rounded hips and full, sloping breasts and rosebud nipples. It is all he can do not to weep.

And then she swings one leg over his midsection, and he is certain that he is dead. He is dead and he has somehow ascended into heaven and—no, no, that can't be right; there is no place in heaven for a cursed wretch such as he, and therefore this must be real and she is _straddling him_ and he can hardly breathe. He feels the warmth of her hand between his legs, and then she takes him inside of her.

His breath actually stops. For one moment he is a real corpse, his skeletal form lifeless on the bed, arms stiff and skin clammy. But there is a heat sparking where he is joined to his bride, and it seeps out into his veins until a fiery current takes off in a hundred different directions throughout his body. Blood pounds inside his head.

His arms shoot off the bed of their own accord, stretching past her with a nervous energy that he cannot harness. His fingers splay and then curl in like talons. Seemingly of their own volition, they find her hipbones and sink into the tender flesh there.

A whimper from her throat calls him back to the present. Christine's lips are parted, her breaths weighted, and he is certain he has hurt her. But her blue eyes find his golden ones, and she leans forward to utter the best and most terrifying command that he has ever heard: "Make love to me, Erik."

Lust overtakes fear. He pulls her down to meet his own hips as he gently bucks them upward, and the resulting friction draws a tangle of gasp and sigh from her lips. Her eyelids flutter shut.

"Like this?" he croaks.

"Yes," she says, the word little more than an outward breath. "Exactly like that."

They begin to move in tandem, her hips rolling against him. She leans forward so that her torso is parallel to his. Long, flaxen hair drapes over the right side of her head and curtains off the rest of the room. There is only this, this veneration of their joined and shared flesh, and she is all he can see and feel and breathe.

Her eyes find him again, half-closed and hazy; she presses her lips to his. They are parted, and he tastes salt and heat and moisture. Her mouth trails off to one side, blazing a path across his hollowed cheek, his face of death. He gasps but does not stop her.

Her slender neck moves near his lips and so he tastes that, too, worships it with lips and tongue, sucking at downy skin. He frees one hand to palm her breast, reveling in its weighted warmth. She emits a tiny mewling sound that shatters his remaining caution.

He grabs her hips again and drives upward, steadier now, more punctuated than the undulating motions between them before. His face and his corporeal form have long since ceased to exist; there is only softness and heat, and the heat is building and it is going to consume him and he wants her there beside him when it does, and so he angles his hips in a way that he thinks might bring her more pleasure.

She cries out. Her hands tear at the pillow on either side of his head, pulling it taut beneath him. She somehow manages to wrap herself tighter around him as she convulses, and that is all the encouragement he needs to join her. Strangled noises escape his throat as he bucks against her, and he releases her hips to wrap lanky arms around her waist while they ride out the ebbing waves of euphoria.

The candle is nearly burned out when he comes to. He has not moved, but Christine now dozes at his side, one slender arm stretched across his midsection. He flexes cramped muscles, cursing inwardly when it makes her stir.

But she only smiles up at him with half-lidded eyes. "Thank you," she says sleepily, and she burrows in closer.

All he can do then is weep.


End file.
